


365 Days of Eri

by sourpatchedkid



Series: Minimal Warm Project [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, OC x Sehun, Twitter Commission, Writing Commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27723577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sourpatchedkid/pseuds/sourpatchedkid
Summary: Ninong Sehun learns that you can tell so much about a person by the way they leave you.Albeit, 365 days too late.
Relationships: Oh Sehun/Reader
Series: Minimal Warm Project [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2030437
Kudos: 19





	365 Days of Eri

**Author's Note:**

> To the donor,
> 
> Thank you for your support and geneoristy. I hope you like it!

_Sehun’s POV_

****

** JANUARY **

I went to Barcino a few days ago. Like we always do every after New Year’s. There’s a strange silence that wraps all the waiters and waitresses when they see me come in alone. I was expecting a question about you. I prepared multiple lies for it—how you were still in the States, how you caught a flu—but perhaps I wore it so clearly on my face that you weren’t with me. Not that night.

Not anymore.

They kept their lips sealed and led me to our usual booth. James, our usual waiter turned casual friend, looks at me unsurely. He has seen me eat in Barcino multiple times before. Long before I even met you. In fact, it came to a point where it became a running joke about how I’m always alone and that my dates probably ditched me every time. James would joke that Barcino is such a “tito” place for a first date. 

“She’s just running late.” I would say as I clean my plate and finish my wine. Of course, the non-existence of my girlfriend at that time and my willingness to eat in a place surrounded by couples regularly entertained them. I had to humor them. 

Imagine our surprise last year when you came rushing in, books in one hand and your laptop in another. Your hair was wrapped in a neatly tight-bun and you wore a green plaid polo on top of your white shirt. You were running out of breath, glaring at someone by the door. 

“I’m already late for my date, see!” You shout. There’s a man by the door who was looking at you suspiciously but I was more concerned of how unruly your hair is and how it was sticking on the sweat on your face. I reached out for a napkin and wiped your face—that seemed to convince the man to leave. 

When you’ve deemed it safe, you blew a strand on your forehead and began to turn red. I stared back, unsure of why I’m getting just as shy as you, maybe even more, when I’m not the one invading someone’s dinner. You hang your head low as a quiet sorry and it took me a solid five minutes to muster up a nervous laugh. 

“Have a breadstick.” I take the bread from my plate and hand it to you. Without looking up, you took the stick and ate it. You spent the next ten minutes munching on the bread, still avoiding my gaze. 

James walks past my table only to walk back. He raises an eyebrow at me and says, “She finally came, huh? 2 years late. Traffic ba daw?”

I rolled my eyes and shooed him away. When you’ve finished your bread stick, you finally looked at me to apologize. 

“I’m really sorry.” It’s the first of the thousands of apologies I’ll hear for the rest of the year. “He’s an ex.”

“No need to tell me.” I assured you. I hand you another bread, and then, another, and another. It took us 12 bread sticks to finally introduce ourselves to each other. 

“Eri Lee.”

“Sehun Oh.” You repeat my name right after. I didn’t know that my name could sound that lovely. 

James had to tell us that they were closing. I didn’t know what time they usually closed because I was usually out and about after eight. I didn’t realize we’ve been talking so much until he was pointing at the blinds slowly going down signalling everyone that it was time to go. 

Barcino watched our story begin. 

Barcino is watching again as I start over.

****

** FEBRUARY **

You’ve never liked receiving flowers _but_ you liked giving me bouquets. On Valentine’s Day, I told you I was babysitting my godchild because his parents were out on a date. You insisted you needed to see me just for five minutes to give me something. I gave you their home address and shortly after, I found you in the condominium lobby in yet another plaid shirt, holding a vase of forget-me-nots. I felt my heartbeat race fast to the point where my godchild who was sleepy in my arms started tapping my chest to “calm ninong, calm”. 

“I saw it in mom’s garden and thought of you.” You said, handing me the vase, careful not to spill the water in it. 

“Why?” 

“You like blue.” You shrugged. You sounded so nonchalant that it felt it didn’t warrant the palpitations I was having. “Is this Pauie?” 

Pauie fell asleep tapping my chest. So you took his little hand and kissed it before taking a few steps back to wave goodbye. 

Later that night, I called my mom to ask what Forget-Me-Nots symbolized. She said it could symbolize the growing affection of two people.

This year, there’s a bunch of orange roses that came in my office as a congratulatory gift from one of my new business partners. My secretary said that it means a “business thank you” so I asked her if she knew what Forget-Me-Nots meant and she said that it’s a “remembrance during partings”. 

The blue petals in my wallet would agree. But, my heart cannot. Why would you give me something so beautiful to remember you by when all that happened was everything but not?

****

** MARCH **

I’ve always hated using Facebook and Messenger. I’d much rather text people directly. Then, I know that they received it by hook or by crook. But you insisted on using Messenger so you can send memes easily. 

I reactivated my account after a while and started scrolling and liking in my newsfeed. A bunch of people started messaging me to check in and ask me how I am. I left my phone on my center table as I resorted to playing PS5. The continuous pinging annoyed me. 

But every time my phone lit up, a part of me hoped it was you.

And every time, it wasn’t.

****

** APRIL **

Pauie’s parents threw me a surprise brunch party for my birthday. My parents and siblings were all out of the country to prepare for my brother’s wedding. Every 30 minutes there was a surprise prepared for me—whether it was a video call from one of my nephews in Korea or my actual family coming in my house for a quick visit. 

For each time Pauie yells, “Surprise time!” my heart would pound fast. 

And for each time another person comes in or another video pops up that isn’t you, I’m always sent in a crash. 

****

** MAY **

Do you remember that one time you flew out to Japan for me? Because one of my ramen branches was launching in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. You knew how nervous I was even before I left and I was even more so the moment I stepped in Japan. The next thing I knew, you were right next to me, holding my hand and rubbing circles on my thumb as we listened to the host introduce me and the history of the ramen place. 

There’s another branch opening in Hokkaido and the core team is more or less the same with the ones in Tokyo. They kept asking about you. They pointed out that my hand and voice kept shaking without you. 

A part of me wanted to tell them that we’ve broken up and that you don’t even know that we have a new branch in Hokkaido. 

But they were all smiling and hoping fervently to see you that I didn’t know how to.

****

** JUNE **

You told your parents about me in June. 

I’ve always said to myself that once a person includes their family in the relationship, then it has to succeed. 

We were both pretty determined. You held my hand under the table as your dad tried to ask me one question after the other. You called me your “special friend” which sent him in an hour-long lecture about the importance of labels in a relationship and that he wasn’t going to have his daughter strung at the end of some man’s string. I apologized to him multiple times and you nudged your leg against mine every time. 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” You told me before I went home. We never talked about relationship but we both assumed we were together. I asked if we could clear it up that night and you nodded and called me your boyfriend. 

It’s June the following year and I bumped into your parents at the mall. I’m waiting for Pauie to finish his Kiddie Crew Workshop at McDonald’s. They’re holding a little baby in their arms as we caught up with our own lives. 

Does it seem odd to you that they could have held another baby who wasn't yours and mine?

It does to me.

** JULY **

I was going to deactivate my Facebook again today.

I stumbled upon you on my feed. You changed your profile picture. 

It was a candid photo of you in a floral dress in the middle of the road in Baguio. You were laughing candidly. For a split second, I can hear your awkward giggles before erupting into a laughter.

I wish I was careful, you know? I wish I was careful about the people that I met. I wish I was careful when I met you but, the harsh truth was that, we can’t undo meeting others.

And even if I had that option, I don’t know if I’d want to. 

** AUGUST **

There was a heated debate in my best friend’s household earlier today on whether or not it changes anything if you marry someone too soon. You’ve met my best friends. They’re Pauie’s parents and I’ve graciously played the role as their eldest son over the past few years. 

One said that you have to date for a while to truly get to know someone while the other debated that you’ll have to continuously learn about the person anyway so you can go on with it. They did agree that whatever path you take, it’s all about making a choice. 

I don’t know who to believe. In the year that we’ve known each other, it felt like I knew you all my life. Sometimes I get the urge to ask what took you so long to get here but I reel myself back in because I know we have the rest of our lives to figure it all out.

But it turned out that my best friends were only partially right. Each person and each couple have to choose each other to make a relationship and then a marriage work. 

And you did choose. But you chose something else. 

** SEPTEMBER **

I hated watching movies but I indulged you every time you asked for it. 

‘The How’s of Us’ was a Filipino movie by your favorite celebrity couple and you said it was their greatest work yet. I think I was more focused on how you clung to my arm the entire time and used my shirt to wipe your tears and snot than the movie itself. 

After the movie, something in you changed. I guess that’s the thing about art, right? It speaks to you in volumes you wouldn’t expect. You were art in itself and you did that to me.

But that day, after the movie, something shifted. 

“I love all of you.” I said in a lame attempt to be romantic. I brushed the silence as you trying to take in all of the movie. You only hummed in response. 

I can never understand how people can love parts of yourself and not a person’s entirety. Maybe I’m just greedy. Maybe my heart just didn’t work that way.

But to me, I felt my love for you from the tip of my nose up until the bottom of my toes.

I hope you find someone who makes you feel that way—like it would pain you to not love them and it would kill you to not tell them. 

In an alternate universe, I hope I am that for you. 

** OCTOBER **

“Ninong, who do you love the most?” 

It’s yet another sleepover in my house with Pauie. I thought he fell asleep an hour ago so I started drinking to make myself sleepy. Three episodes of We Bare Bears later, a small head pops up the blanket and asks. 

I’m too drunk to care that he’s awake at 11PM so I kiss his forehead and tell him, “You. Ninong loves you the most.” 

“You’re not allowed to say me!” He groans. He expects an answer from me so seriously as if he’s asking me to choose between Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms. It catches me off-guard and I answer him with silence. And like the kid that he is, he groans and insists. “Papa said you don’t have a girlfriend.” 

“I don’t.” He’s seven now so he asks one too many questions. Pauie’s the only one you met but I doubt he remembers your face. 

I wish I was in his place. 

You never got around to meeting my best friends and I never got around to telling them our story. 

_Who do I love the most?_

“Tell me a story about love.” Pauie talks again. “Not papa and daddy’s!”

“Why are you interest about love? You’re seven.” 

“I have a girlfriend!” He says defensively. “I know love! Tell me about _your_ love!”

So I tell him about you. In a children’s version of how we met and how we fell in love. I tweaked the ending though and made it a happy one so at least one of us could be more hopeful in that area. Pauie listens to me intently, asking questions every now and then about my own definition of love. It seems that he thinks we’re the same age. Whether or not he thinks I’m seven too or that he’s an adult, I don’t really mind. 

Love, he tells me, is the drawings that his girlfriend, Joana, sends him every day to his classroom and love means seeing her every day. 

Love, to me, is not being able to look at you the way that you are because it wasn’t what I hoped for and you weren’t who I thought you were going to be. 

** NOVEMBER **

It doesn’t matter to me what your reasons are for not coming back.

It doesn’t matter to me if you chose to run back to the guy from Barcino’s door.

It doesn’t matter to me that you had his baby. 

What matters to me is for you to come back.

Was it me, Eri? Could I have been stronger? 

If I was stronger, maybe I could have kept you.

** DECEMBER **

I didn’t get to be angry and it’s so unfair how I didn’t get to be angry.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to ask so many questions. I wanted to break down in tears. I wanted to lash out, Eri. I wanted to lash out at you.

But instead, I just had to sit there and watch you destroy me.

And the sad thing is I’ll look for you in everyone else.

You have no idea. 

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This is a paid work. All proceeds have been donated to the Kaya Natin! Movement and Sagip Kapamilya as of November 22, 2020. (https://tinyurl.com/ProofMWProj2020)
> 
> Feel free to comment or tweet/message me @__jonginnie (yes, two underscores).


End file.
